DESIGN FIRM LEADERSHIP

This course introduces students to the management and leadership of professional design firms including architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, and planning practices. Using case studies, lectures, written assignments, and presentations by real world clients and principals of successful design firms, this course invokes a considered inquiry into the nature and challenges of producing high quality design within the context of the business necessities of design practice. This course provides students of architecture, interior design, landscape architecture and planning with insights into such issues as: the fragmented industry within which design firms operate; starting, managing and leading a design firm; marketing, branding, and positioning of design practices; business planning and strategic decision making for the design practitioner; design firm economics and financial management of design firms, including methodologies for establishing and negotiating adequate design fees, determining economic billing rates, and budgeting and controlling firm expenses; general management theory and its application to design firms; the unique nature of design firm organizational culture; risk assessment and mitigation; succession planning, ownership transition, and design firm valuation. This course augments other practice-related courses. 

Assignments include readings, three written assignments, and a final paper, project or case study. The individual assignments include preparation of a strategic business plan explaining how one might start and lead a new design firm; development of a financial model of a professional design firm; and an essay on design firm culture. The final project is a 10-15 page essay on a topic of the students’ choice, or alternatively, expansion of the strategic business plan completed in the first assignment, or a case study of a successful design firm that explores elements relevant to the material covered in the course.